How Grant Reconnected with his Japanese Heritage through Dojo Ownership

Grant’s story begins in Ithaca, New York, where he was born to a Japanese mother and a father of European descent. Like many others with multicultural heritage, Grant’s early years were spent straddling two worlds.

“I was born in Ithaca, New York. My dad was a grad student at the time… I was raised in Iowa,” he recalls. It was in this quintessential American setting that his lifelong adventure with martial arts began—not by ambition, but by family tradition and circumstance.

Discovering Judo, Wrestling, and a Sense of Belonging

Grant’s immersion in martial arts started early.

“I had done JUDO since about 6 years old, like on and off,” he says, a consequence of his family’s desire to stay connected with their Japanese roots even while living in Iowa. His father’s own wrestling background and his older brother’s participation in judo nudged him down the same path:

“My dad did wrestling, so maybe the grappling was kind of in the family. I don’t know. My brother started judo, and then I… used to do whatever he did, my older brother. So I started judo as well in junior high.”

Through junior high and into high school, Grant dabbled in wrestling, before heading to the University of Iowa. “In college, I wanted to grapple… So I started going to the judo club at University of Iowa.” There, a desire to improve his ground game led to dabbling in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu: “I started a little bit of Jiu Jitsu to help with the ground game in judo. And then one thing led to another and I started to get more and more into Jiu Jitsu.”

By his senior year, he’d committed to training and competing in both sports. “At the end of college, I ended up getting my black belt in judo and blue belt in jiu jitsu at around the same time.”

Searching for Cultural Roots: The Leap to Japan

With a foundation of martial arts and a black belt in hand, Grant looked east—to Japan, his mother’s homeland. “I wanted to live here. We had visited Japan a lot as kids, but I wanted to live here and experience sort of my mom’s culture, you know, that heritage of mine.”

His initial plan was short-term. “It was supposed to be one or two years, then move back to America and start getting a life and start getting a real job.” But Tokyo had its own magnetic pull: “Japan can be like a dream world for a lot of foreigners… You’re a foreigner, like, oh, wow, you know, and people treat you so good and so special here, and it’s easy to make money and you don’t have to, like, buckle down, you know?”

His ambitions to return home quietly faded amidst the backdrop of odd English teaching jobs, travel, and deepening involvement in the Japanese grappling scene.

From Student and Teacher to Business Owner

As time drew on, Grant’s place in Japan became less about cultural tourism and more about forging a personal identity. He transitioned from an English teacher to jiu jitsu instructor, giving private lessons, then gradually increasing his teaching load: “Starting some private lessons, like, starting teaching once a week, then getting a job teaching more Jiu jitsu, like, maybe 80% of the time, Jiu jitsu.”

The leap to opening his own school came after a turning point in employment. “I had a really good job in Tokyo, and then the time came to part ways. I looked at my other options… most of those options would have been a decrease in pay. And that’s not something that, like, I was eager to do.” Rather than step down, his solution was to step up—by creating his own jiu jitsu academy. “So basically I had this great job and I thought that there was no way I was ever going to get another job that good… So the only thing I could do to move up, like, in my personal opinion, was to open a gym.”

Though it had always been part of his long-term plans—“My plan was to work, like, a little longer and try to, like, learn some more things and develop some more connections before opening my own gym”—circumstances nudged him to act sooner. “One thing led to another and I ended up opening this place when I was 26, which was a little earlier than I intended. But, like, it has gone well for me. Not like crazy well. I mean, jiu jitsu, especially in Japan, like, it’s not generally a lucrative business.”

Struggles and Lessons in Growing a Martial Arts School

Running a martial arts gym in Japan came with challenges, many of them shaped by the unique pressures of Japanese work culture and the relative obscurity of BJJ in the country. “People are overworked here. Like, many people in Japan don’t have time for hobbies. Even if they have time. Like, if someone at the workplace finds out, it’s a problem for them.”

The social anxieties of Japanese gym-goers were unfamiliar to Grant, but impossible to ignore. “There’s a lot of people that like when we take a picture at the end of class, they like, they say, I can’t. Like if someone finds, if it’s on social media, if someone finds out, like at my job, I can’t.”

Retention in such an environment was difficult. “Like getting students is very hard. And then like getting your students to stay is very hard.” He discovered that small classes could be discouraging for Japanese newcomers: “If I had to do it over, I would have started with only, like, three days a week. So you would have people in the classes all the time. When somebody new comes in and it’s like two people in here, it’s kind of awkward…. But when there’s like 10 people and it’s busy, you feel like you’re not really being looked at by an instructor and it’s easier for maybe a Japanese person to join.”

Through persistence and a welcoming community atmosphere, Grant slowly built his membership. “I guess what I did was I just kept on grinding and, like, not stopping. And eventually we got like one regular member and then two, and now we have like, 10. Like, we obviously have more members, but I would say we have about 10, like, regular, hardcore, like, super reliable, consistent members. And once you get that, like, a core of about 10 people, then you could… have 100 people, like, in the gym total that are kind of like built around that core of… 10 super loyal, super consistent, like, customers, you know?”

Community, Culture, and Making a Home Abroad

Today, Grant’s gym is a microcosm of cosmopolitan Tokyo: “Because I speak English, we have a lot of foreigners. Philippines, Europe, America, other parts of Asia, we got a lot of young people, college kids, we got dudes in their 50s. And our female to male ratio is like one to four, which I’m very proud of for Japan.” He offers classes for children as well, “from age 5 to 13,” and ensures a welcoming environment for all: “If somebody new comes in and they’re like awkwardly waiting on the sidelines, like not knowing what to do, I don’t have to tell anybody to go grab them and work with them. Like our members naturally go and… teach them stuff… So it’s really the members that like make the gym atmosphere welcoming and like energetic and fun.”

Grant’s story is not simply one of business development or martial prowess. It is about the power of persistence, cultural humility, and leading with character. He credits his success not to shrewd business sense, but to authenticity and the willingness to be a person that others want to learn from: “It’s not, like, about being a shrewd businessman or like, being up to date on all the tax laws and stuff. It’s about being, like, a person that people want to come see and learn from and hang out with and train with. Right. That’s the biggest thing.”

Conclusion

From a grappling enthusiast in Iowa to an entrepreneur straddling two cultures in metropolitan Tokyo, Grant’s journey weaves together family tradition, the pursuit of connection, and a gritty determination to carve out a life built on dreams both personal and professional. “I did it because it was my dream, and I just wanted to. Right. Like, I felt like if I could live off of this and go on vacation once a year, I’d be happy. And that’s what I have now. So.”

His advice to anyone hoping to follow: “You need to be good at what you’re trying to sell… All the other stuff doesn’t matter. Like, the product has to be good, and then all the other stuff, it will come.”

Through struggle, community, and a simple love of teaching, Grant found his place—on the mats of Tokyo, building not just a gym, but a lasting legacy.